Upcoming Changes to Monster Play

[SSG_Orion]

In an effort to do as I said I would, I want to offer some transparency on the current state of the expected changes that will make their way onto Bullroarer in the near future. All of these are initial passes on skills, abilities, and stats and they may change before reaching Bullroarer or after we see some of the feedback and experiences on the Bullroarer server.

With that disclaimer out of the way, here are the general changes to the Ettenmoors:

Control Point Changes:

For each outpost that monsters players control they receive a 20% bonus to Glory/Infamy and commendation earns and 44900 finesse. For each outpost that free players control they receive a 20% bonus to Glory/Infamy. There are no other bonuses for controlling these locations.

For each tower or camp locale that monster players and free players control they receive a 25% bonus to Glory/Infamy and commendation earns. There are no other bonuses applied for controlling these locations.

Controlling Tol Ascarnen grants the controlling faction a 50% bonus to Glory/Infamy and commendation earns. There are no other bonuses applied for controlling Tol Ascarnen.

Artifact Changes:

When monster players control their artifact they receive +5% to all defences, +5% to all damage, +50% increase to Glory/Infamy and commendations earns, Increased Finesse by 180000, and a 2% reduction in power costs. When free players control their artifact they receive +2% to all their defences, +50% increase to Glory/Infamy and commendations earn, and a 2% reduction in power costs.

General Item Changes:

Maps to Gramsfoot now all have a 60s cooldown. This is to alleviate the issue with the map being removed from the initial quest deed.

General Monster Player Changes:

All Monster Player base health increased by 25%

Orc Reaver Changes:

Base Melee Damage increased by 5%

Resilience now provides a 10s immunity to roots and slows on a 40s cooldown and breaks all CC.

Enhanced Resilience extends the duration of immunity to 15s and extends CC immunity to all forms of CC for the duration.

Dust in the Eyes now increases miss chance by 40% for 30s hitting up to 4 targets on a 15s cooldown - this remains a wound ability

Sundering Blow now reduces the armor of the target by 168k for 60s

Thrash Wound has its damage increased for the DoT

Blade Toss now slows the target by 40% for 15s

Enhanced Blade Toss now has a 50% chance to knock the target down and applies the 40% slow for 15s

Upper Hand now has a 15s reduction of B/P/E by 120k on a target, increased self armor for 20s and adds a Corruption to the reaver decreasing cooldowns on most damage attacks for any skill play. Additionally, this corrption increases the chance that Enhanced Blade Toss will knock a target down to 100% (Skills affected by the corruption cooldown effect are: Sundering Blow, Blinding Dust, Disarm, Severing Strike, Blade Toss, Impale, Devastating Strike, and Mutilation)

Charge now has an 8s duration makes the target immune to CC, increases run by 200% and can be used in combat

Devastating Strike now has a 15s/8s cooldown and a threshold require of 33%/50 for the differing variants decreases the incoming healing on a target for 8s and increases the damage done by 150% and 250% for the normal and enhanced version respectively

'Time-Out' now cleanses 3 negative effects and briefly reduces both outgoing and incoming damage, rather than restoring power.

The trait 'Improved Jagged Cut' now also slightly increases potency of bleeds from Lacerate and Mutilation.

New Trait: Double-edged Blades - Adds a chance for Sudden Strikes, Ravage, and Devastating Strike to tier up a Corruption buff on the reaver, causing you to take +2% Incoming Damage, but deal +8% Skill Damage per tier (5 tiers max) 15% chance to receive the effect for each strike made from each of these skills. This effect is a Corruption, and can be tiered down or dispelled by the free peoples.

Orc Defiler Changes:

Base Melee Damage increased by 5%, Base Tactical Damage increased by 5%

The trait 'Enhanced Curse of Sticky Feet' now reduces Fire Mitigation and an appropriate amount of Tactical Mitigation for level 140; however, the debuff is now a cleansable wound effect.

'Anointing of the Slick Flesh' now removes up to three Physical or Tactical effects

'Constant Pain' now deals significantly more damage and significantly less healing

'Curse of the Lethargic Heart' debuff potency increased slightly

'Curse of Deadly Sorrows' now reduces an opponent's Fate, Tactical Mastery, Armour Value, Resistance, and and Finesse

'Curse of the Melancholic Heart' now reduces Outgoing Healing by 50% (from 25%)

'Gooey Gourd' now increases Skill Inductions by 100% (from 20%) but is now a cleansable poison effect.

Summoned Flies improvements
Regular summoned flies from 'Plague of Flies' now last 10s and deal much less damage, but have more morale, and significantly increased evade chance
When traited, Improved flies now last 20s (down from 30s) but have a greater miss chance debuff, more morale, and even greater evade chance

'Efflorescence' induction increased from 1s to 2s

Morale cost of Fell Sacrifice increased to 2% of max morale

Gourd skills base inductions increased to 2.5s

New stance: 'Curse-shouter'
Reduces outgoing healing and increases damage
Reduces inductions of Gourd and Curse skills
Disables 'Efflorescence'
Alters 'Fungal Bloom'
Reduced healing, increased cooldown
Applies a 30s buff 'Poison Bloom' which increases potency of Damage over Time effects

'Fell Restoration' becomes 'Doom of the North'
Doom of the North deals Frost damage and applies a Fear that counts down for 5s before dealing significant Frost damage to the target. If cleansed, the effect deals significantly less damage.

'Fungal Spores' becomes 'Stinging Spores'
Stinging Spores deals a small amount of Acid Damage, as well as Acid Damage over Time, and stacks up to 3 times on a target

New stance: 'Herb-tender'
Increases healing and decreases damage
Healing skills gain the ability to tier up the 'Invigorated' Corruption effect on allies, increasing damage, reducing attack speed, and increasing incoming healing.

Curses become Boon skills which apply Corruption buffs to allies

'Curse of the Lethargic Heart' becomes 'Boon of the Blackened Heart'
+15% Damage dealt

'Curse of Rotten Flesh' becomes 'Boon of Toxic Flesh'
-10% Incoming Damage

'Curse of Deadly Sorrows' becomes 'Boon of the Battle-scarred'
Increases Armour, Beleriand Mitigation, Light Mitigation, and Resistance Rating

Fixed some out of date & incorrect tooltips

General Orc Changes:

Undying Rage cooldown is now 8m and requires the Orc to be under 50% health. On activation applies a Corruption effect that makes the Orc immune to death, increases damage, reduces incoming damage and on expiration deals 50% of the orc's max morale as damage. Additionally, an additive effect provides a 2% heal boost on all skill plays while under the effects of Undying Rage. If the Corruption is removed before the effect expires the Orc does NOT suffer the damage and has the cooldown for Undying Ragereduced by 360s.

Warg Stalker Changes:

Base Melee Damage increased by 5%, Base Tactical Damage increased by 15%

Flayer stance

Flayer Bubble is now 7% of max health.

Improved Flayer Armour & Mit buffs rolled into regular flayer buff; Improved Flayer Trait now gives -10% incoming melee/ranged damage, +5% Beleriand Mitigation, and +20% Threat

Ending or cancelling Pack Flayers' root will no longer dispel Flayer bubble.

'Pack Hunters' (non-Shadow/non-Flayer version) now increases a target's incoming damage by 5% and reduces incoming healing by 50%.

'Shadow Pack' now reduces incoming healing by 25%; 10% after leaving the debuff area.

'Improved Rallying Howl' Damage buff lasts 25s, rather than 15s.

Baseline 'Stealth' no longer reduces movement speed, but base Stealth level has been decreased by 3.

The trait 'Improved Stealth' now increases stealthed movement speed 5%, Increases Stealth level by 7, and increases Critical Chance of attacks from stealth by 10%.

Reduced 'Bestial Claws' Damage slightly.

Added minor damage to the initial skill hits of 'Crippling Bite' and all versions of 'Savage Fangs.'

Shadow Fangs now places an effect that reduces the ability to parry by 68000, increases induction timers by 45% and reduces skill ranges by 5m for 45s

Snap! now reduces the target's damage by 10% for 30s (this is a multiplicative reduction)

Flea Bitten now applies an initial interrupt and then a pulsing interrupt on the target that lasts for 15 seconds pulsing every five seconds

Howl of unnerving now debuffs mitigation by 50% through fear on up to 4 targets

Brutal Fangs(Flayer Stance) now redes Block, Parry, and Evade by 25% and, when scoring a Brute bonus hit decreases armor by 25% for 45s

Pounce/Sudden Pounce now applies a corruption to the warg increasing the damage of "Fang" by 150% for 24s

Scratch and Snip damage increased slightly and now applies a buff when successfully striking with the scratch portion of the attack that increases the critical chance of Maul and Claw attacks by 75% for 3s.On a successful snip portion of the attack, this applies a buff on the Stalker increasing the critical chance of Fang and Snap attacks for 10s.

Swipe now adds a corruption to the warg increasing the chance to land "Brute" effects by 50%

Uruk Blackarrow Changes:

Base Melee and Ranged Damage increased by 5%

New Corruption buff: Stand Tall
Gives +5% Skill Damage, +2 Max Range, and -3% Induction Duration per tier
Tiers up to a max of 3 (15% Damage, 6 Range, -10% Inductions)
15s Duration
This effect is a Corruption, and can thus be dispelled by the free peoples.

'Centre' is once again a channeled skill
Tiers up Stand Tall every 1.5s while channeling
Fixed negative Power scaling on Centre
Vital Target' and 'Improved Vital Target' will add one tier of Stand Tall

Uruk Warleader Changes:
Base Melee and Tactical Damage increased by 10%

'Command Post' now increases all masteries by 25%.

'Banner of Terror' now also includes a Level of Dread when it is summoned.

'Banner of Horror' now also includes three levels of Dread when it is summoned.

'Menacing Roar' range increased to 20m and total targets increased to 6.

'Black Speech' damage increased.

'Cleave' damage increased slightly, and is now a small AoE, dealing damage to up to 3 targets.

'Fracture' damage increased considerably.

The trait 'Damage Boost' trait now grants +25% damage, rather than 3%.

The trait 'Empowering' now has a Tactical Mastery value appropriate for level 140 and its In-combat Power Regen has been changed to Resistance Rating.

'Purge' no longer breaks allies out of stealth.

When traited, 'Purge' now grants 6s of immunity to CC.

Spider Weaver Changes:

Base Melee Damage increased by 5%

'Clinging Webs' miss chance debuff increased from 7% to 15%.

'Venomous Haze' now has a max range of 40m, and reduces player ranged skills by 15m.

'Lethal kiss' now deals slightly more damage at the outset, and deals ~4x that damage after ten seconds if the effect is not removed; cooldown has been increased to 10s.

'Grasping Webs' now has a 50% chance to break on damage.

'Necrosis' now reduces the resistance rating of targets by 120k

The trait 'Steelweave Webs' now increases the grace period of your roots to 3s.

'Envenom' base damage increased; bonus 20% damage for every venom pip.

'Shelob's Gift' reduced from a full heal to a ~1/3 heal.

'Feast' now restores morale on a defeat event instead of power.

‘Poison Spray' can now be used against NPCs

Hatchlings
Base Hatchling Health increased by 15%

Strong Brood now gives +75% Health, -10% power, 5% faster attacks, +25% melee damage, +25% Critical Damage, +25% Melee Critical Hit Points, +15% Evade Rate

Scytode Brood now gives +25% health, +15% power, +10% faster attack speed, -25% melee damage, +35% ranged damage, +25% critical chance, +15% melee critical hit points, +10% Evade Rate (Note: 'Ranged' damage mods also affect 'Tactical' damage, to hedge against inconsistent skill effects now/in the future, as Ranged & Tactical damage should be treated the same, for the purposes of this pet mod)

Minor text change to both Scytode Brood and Strong Brood Traits, which now say '*You* gain increased tactical or physical mitigation' They formerly said 'The weaver gains...' which was potentially confusing, as the rest of the trait affects your pet, which is also a weaver, in a sense.

New skill: Cleansing Shadows
Costs 3 Venom
The weaver can consume up to 3 negative tactical, song, or cry effects
The weaver is healed a small amount for each effect consumed.

Toxic Carapace' has been reworked slightly

The effect from Toxic Carapace now tiers down over time; the starting tier depends on the number of Venom pips consumed. Tier 5 effect is now -25% incoming damage, 80% reflected damage. Incoming damage potency is reduced 5% per tier, and reflect potency is reduced 10% per tier Overall duration and cooldown increased slightly (25s maximum possible duration, 90s cooldown) This effect is now a Corruption, meaning it can be tiered down or dispelled by the free peoples.

[J-Moneyforever]

These are very cool. Excited to see them in action. Stuff like this goes a long way toward saving the moors because it will make the classes fun to play through the reworks rather than just adding some flatline buffs that make them tolerable but stale. Looking forward to trying this. Any chance we hear about performance improvements in the near term as well? If these changes are effective and received well AND we saw a reduction in lag the moors could really be on the uptick.

[Brutus778]

Great work. Can't wait to test these changes and finally have a bit more survivability and balance in the Moors. Thanks Orion.

[UselessSmurf]

You still didn't address WL's biggest problem, its heal inductions. All this new damage is moot when you are an Interupt Pinata' for Champs/Burgs/Guards/Ranged DPS, I suggest you get out in the Moors and actually play one.

[Soragrim]

Interesting and well-needed changes, esp for reaver & cleanses. Really looking forward to BR testing.
Is there a way to nerf some low-cd freep offensive debuffs like Yellow Bees, Armour Crush, Warden Javelins, Minstrel light mitigation debuff, etc ? These debuffs will always screw every attempt of balancing freep vs creep because if your balancing goal is 3-6 vs 3-6, creeps will melt in any 12+ vs 12+ scenario where freeps have access to all their debuffs. If you try to balance out a 12+ vs 12+ scenario with these debuffs in mind, small groups will be unkillable. Either nerf offensive support on freepside or give creepside access to similar debuffs. Changing armour rating debuffs to flat +incoming damage or -phy/tac mitigation would be a great start.

[danr607]

I didn't expect stances now for defilers. This will be interesting to see now their debuffs are increased and can deal significantly more damage. I like the heal changes as well. I'm looking forward to trying these out.

[Detective0]

Promising changes. if you are mainly focusing on small group vs small group fights then creeps need another in-combat rez, right now WL is the only class that can rez, and freeps have so many ways to instantly 1 shot creeps, so would be nice if you nerf WL rez to 2-3 targets and give defilers in-combat single rez.

[Urundus]

Artifact Changes:

When monster players control their artifact they receive +5% to all defences, +5% to all damage, +50% increase to Glory/Infamy and commendations earns, Increased Finesse by 180000, and a 2% reduction in power costs. When free players control their artifact they receive +2% to all their defences, +50% increase to Glory/Infamy and commendations earn, and a 2% reduction in power costs.

What happens when one side owns both artifacts? Will that provide additional benefits?

Orc Reaver Changes:

Base Melee Damage increased by 5%

Resilience now provides a 10s immunity to roots and slows on a 40s cooldown and breaks all CC.

Enhanced Resilience extends the duration of immunity to 15s and extends CC immunity to all forms of CC for the duration.

Dust in the Eyes now increases miss chance by 40% for 30s hitting up to 4 targets on a 15s cooldown - this remains a wound ability

Sundering Blow now reduces the armor of the target by 168k for 60s

Thrash Wound has its damage increased for the DoT

Blade Toss now slows the target by 40% for 15s

Enhanced Blade Toss now has a 50% chance to knock the target down and applies the 40% slow for 15s

Upper Hand now has a 15s reduction of B/P/E by 120k on a target, increased self armor for 20s and adds a Corruption to the reaver decreasing cooldowns on most damage attacks for any skill play. Additionally, this corrption increases the chance that Enhanced Blade Toss will knock a target down to 100% (Skills affected by the corruption cooldown effect are: Sundering Blow, Blinding Dust, Disarm, Severing Strike, Blade Toss, Impale, Devastating Strike, and Mutilation)

Charge now has an 8s duration makes the target immune to CC, increases run by 200% and can be used in combat

Devastating Strike now has a 15s/8s cooldown and a threshold require of 33%/50 for the differing variants decreases the incoming healing on a target for 8s and increases the damage done by 150% and 250% for the normal and enhanced version respectively

'Time-Out' now cleanses 3 negative effects and briefly reduces both outgoing and incoming damage, rather than restoring power.

The trait 'Improved Jagged Cut' now also slightly increases potency of bleeds from Lacerate and Mutilation.

New Trait: Double-edged Blades - Adds a chance for Sudden Strikes, Ravage, and Devastating Strike to tier up a Corruption buff on the reaver, causing you to take +2% Incoming Damage, but deal +8% Skill Damage per tier (5 tiers max) 15% chance to receive the effect for each strike made from each of these skills. This effect is a Corruption, and can be tiered down or dispelled by the free peoples.

These changes are massive. I do have a couple of concerns though.

• Dust seems to be incredibly strong now. We all hated on the over tuned burg dust and now reaver gets it. I'm of the opinion we don't need more RNG in fights as it is extremely frustrating.
• Sundering blow is still very lackluster and is actually a nerf when compared to live where it is -213k armour. As armour only contributes 20% of the total value to mitigations for freeps this is now a 33.6k mitigation debuff compared to 42.6k on live.
• I really, really like giving reaver some form of CC which it was very much lacking. Not sure what to think about the RNG aspect though, especially when chasing down players on horseback where you can't get the upper hand corruption.
• Charge changes and resilience fixes are very welcome and much needed, but I'm kind of afraid of the immunity uptime now. Guess it will depend on how much dps and hps reaver will actually do. If it's still low I don't mind more immunities.
• Exited for double-edged blades. Seems like a fun mechanic. Will depend on freep cleansing ability and total fight duration though. If fights are still sub 30s you won't have any time to tier up.

[Mending_Fiire]

Great too see upcoming Pvp changes it's greatly appreciated I am sure by the Pvp community =) Thank you

Questions is too why Dps was increased for a healing class ? Defiler " that should of been put towards a dps class like BA , Reaver, or a warg.
And a suggestion would be too greatly reduce inductions on a BA's and spiders , inductions are so slow on these classes vrs Freep inductions.
The inductions are soooooo sooooo slow , this could change up game play.

[-Aran-]

Looks like GV camp back on the menu, boys!

[Osglinthor]

You should adress absurd commendation grind on both sides. Its borderline insanity to start new creep or freep(to less exstent). And focus on making pvp about pvp. People would still play it even if they didnt need to grind 80k+ comms. Make rank 0 creep and tell me that is good starting experience or go in in new gear as freep. Tell me that is good pvp. Gap between full gear/high rank and low gear/audacity and low ranks should be reduced drasticly.

[istvana]

"In an effort to do as I said I would"

Don't *ever* run for public office - doing things like that are severely frowned upon.

[Thorandril]

Orc Reaver Changes:Base Melee Damage increased by 5%

this really isn't 1/4 of what it should be adjusted by, but provided corruptions get reworked (which is more necessary at the moment) this number should probably be revisited

Resilience now provides a 10s immunity to roots and slows on a 40s cooldown and breaks all CC.


Enhanced Resilience extends the duration of immunity to 15s and extends CC immunity to all forms of CC for the duration.

Dust in the Eyes now increases miss chance by 40% for 30s hitting up to 4 targets on a 15s cooldown - this remains a wound ability

40% is a bit too high, please just consider 30%. a 10% boost is fine, and doesn't over-do it.

Sundering Blow now reduces the armor of the target by 168k for 60s

on live this is -213k armor value. which at the present may potentially reduce physical mitigations less than 2% because armor contribution to mitigations is pretty much approaching nil at this point.
This is either an unintentional nerf or really underwhelming.

Blade Toss now slows the target by 40% for 15s


Enhanced Blade Toss now has a 50% chance to knock the target down and applies the 40% slow for 15s

cool change, will see it in action before i form an opinion on it.

Upper Hand now has a 15s reduction of B/P/E by 120k on a target, increased self armor for 20s and adds a Corruption to the reaver decreasing cooldowns on most damage attacks for any skill play. Additionally, this corrption increases the chance that Enhanced Blade Toss will knock a target down to 100% (Skills affected by the corruption cooldown effect are: Sundering Blow, Blinding Dust, Disarm, Severing Strike, Blade Toss, Impale, Devastating Strike, and Mutilation)

sounds good, but please return the armor rating buff value to this skill that it was prior to whatever was the last change that was made to it. it dropped around 40k armor rating..
It is my opinion that the improved traited version of this skill should extend the buff 15 seconds (not just the P/E boon, armor rating also) to make it worth slotting.

Charge now has an 8s duration makes the target immune to CC, increases run by 200% and can be used in combat

I strongly feel that this is not a good change. In-combat run speed tinkering has never made for better PvP in this game and it never will, I think this change shouldn't see live servers.

Devastating Strike now has a 15s/8s cooldown and a threshold require of 33%/50 for the differing variants decreases the incoming healing on a target for 8s and increases the damage done by 150% and 250% for the normal and enhanced version respectively

The magnitude... seems a bit high.... but if this is what is required for reavers to be invited to groups. sure.

'Time-Out' now cleanses 3 negative effects and briefly reduces both outgoing and incoming damage, rather than restoring power.

Cool, reduces outgoing damage? why does it have to come with a debuff? If the intention is for it to give time to heal, sure. less damage is not what the reaver needs.

The trait 'Improved Jagged Cut' now also slightly increases potency of bleeds from Lacerate and Mutilation.

will wait to see the magnitudes before commenting.

New Trait: Double-edged Blades - Adds a chance for Sudden Strikes, Ravage, and Devastating Strike to tier up a Corruption buff on the reaver, causing you to take +2% Incoming Damage, but deal +8% Skill Damage per tier (5 tiers max) 15% chance to receive the effect for each strike made from each of these skills. This effect is a Corruption, and can be tiered down or dispelled by the free peoples.

so the play and counter play is simply let the reaver use its skills for a bit and just nuke it (with relentless degrading as it gets lower health) until around half to quarter morale at which point should really require 1-2 good skill shots to kill.




I guess the only request I have at this time is for the upper hand armor rating to be restored, and for blood-lust cooldown to be brought drastically lower than what it is since it has the ability to stack but the cooldown is too long for it to work fluidly and you only get about 10s crossover period with 2 of the buffs on you. This would boost the reaver considerably in group/raid combat without impacting it much in small composition viability. Will further comment later as I have the time.

[Hilawolf]

Any chance the WL can get a base increase in Finesse? Currently you have to trait a finesse or most of your shouts get resisted. If shouts get resisted Power of Fear doesn't work and it gimps healing. I don't feel like I should be required to trait a finesse corruption to be viable.

[Askelin]

Fantastic stuff! I like the idea of some nice buffs in the form of corruptions, it allows for counterplay but also because corruptions are fairly easy to remove, they should be significantly strong but not the sole reason a class can win a fight.
Speaking of counterplay. CHARGE IN COMBAT BABYEEE! Yes! I know in an ideal world it would be so that champs wouldn't have such scuffed sprint but this is a counterplay that works given the restrictions you have on not touching how freep skills work.

All in all, great stuff! I'm excited to see how defilers and reavers will play with the extra tools at their disposal. This isn't just giving creeps more morale and some stats, there are actual changes and additions to how they play which is super exciting! And yes I know DPSfiler is a meme build but it could totally work for real this time, and while defilers usually mix up their healing with debuffs, making them have a buff stance is cool too! Gives them more to do than just spam HoTs.

With that said on defilers... I am curious what you have in mind with the warleader... Like what is their identity after this? I think a good step for them is to increase their base finesse and allow some way to decrease inductions or immunity from inductions. Without changes to how their healing and inductions work, WLs are still a very weak class.

[HolyDuckTape]

Good, freeps can now only solo 7 creeps instead of 8 creeps at once.

Sadly due to the new OP traceries, freeps will now be able to solo 9 creeps at once. Atleast it's less worse than 10

[Strider5548]

...

Some really good and thoughtful changes here. Thanks for all your hard work on this, especially during the time you had to take a brief leave.

[b4jet9597]

Thank god. Finally, real changes. Thank you.

Please up WL finesse that’s about all I could add to this. Getting every shout resisted sucks.

While you’re at it if you’re going to make TA so valuable you should reintroduce WTAB and STAB flags. And hell might as well put EC and OC back where they were and allow us to jump the walls again so it’s not a death trap anymore.

Not a necessity but bring back Candy Mountain. Thanks.

[ElMel]

Thank you for the write-up and a lot of interesting changes!

That said, please do not increase the defiler's 'Efflorescence' induction from 1s to 2s... it's going to make it near unusable in combat b/c freeps of all classes are already interrupting inductions ALL THE TIME, 2s is forever in combat, and that heal is critical for creep group play. Really, if anything, rather than a damage-oriented combat stance, I would trade all that for one more heal skill. And an in-combat rez ability. Please : )

[Blotch]

Orion, thanks for sharing your plan and thoughts. I understand that bringing balance to 6 classes is a big deal. However, I am concerned about the changes for the BA. A while ago you mentioned that you focus on counterparts or counterplay. The BA is a class that needs 5 shots to build maximum dmg (using keen eye stance), and with this changes it keeps on building dmg but at the very start of the fight the BA feels really weak. Every skill that a BA has available feels like a poor version of what hunters have. I believe these changes do not improve the BA playstyle. We would need a skill like burn hot to quickly improve our dmg without the need to shoot 4-5 shots. As we build up dmg we are not encouraged to start a fight using high dmging skills because we would be wasting those skills and not taking the most out of them. Hunters have a lot of skills to boost their dmg and open any rotation with HS following with focus skills. That is a lot of dmg, in very narrow window of time. By the time they have unleashed all that dmg, a BA would be still building up dmg.
There are several skills in the BA kit that should be changed or should bring new benefits. Centre could be redesigned to bring the BA a certain amount of time where all hits are guaranteed to crit. That would give a BA the chance to better manage certain situations: imagine a situation where you need to guarantee a knockdown from headshot or somedoby is running away and you NEED a crit from revenge to guarantee a kill.
Steadfast barrage is a skill that makes no sense at all. Channeling a skill that causes mediocre dmg, that can't crit is not useful nowadays. This skills needs a rework, maybe it could become just a buff to decrease inductions and increase dmg for a certain duration. So we have the chance to choose the right moment to improve our dmg. Or just put together all the dmg the ability can deal and let us use it when we reach the highest tier of the stance.
The skirmisher stance should remove inductions from all the skills, even traps. We already have a range reduction - 20m - and we do not build up our dmg using that stance. So removing all inductions seems a fair exchange.
BA DoTs are really bad, maybe you could give us a new corruption to improve our DoTs to choose wether we want to deal raw dmg or build around a most DoT class - like adding DoT to another skills.
In overall, I believe we need a different set of skills not to keep building dmg and in this case, to avoid getting a boost in dmg that can be easily removed from us.

[Daec]

With the current defiler changes can the gourd/curse skills be usable on the move? Currently with the induction removal trait you still need to stop moving to use the skills, which makes it feel clunky and not very fluid at all when playing.

[SingularityNow]

Looking forward to the buffs, but the last time defilers got buffed, it was a 24/7 GV camp. Now I love me a GV camp as much as anyone but what are you going to do when all the ezmoder freeps currently in T4 gear flip to creep for the nu-ezmode?

[Spilo]

Ok... here we go. It's time for Spilo to ruin PvMP again.

Control Points

Glad to see that we're moving away from combat modifiers coming from map control, wouldn't even mind if I saw the Finesse removed and just given to Creep base stats.


Artifact Changes:

Really don't like seeing 5% defense- again, incoming damage is NOT the direction we want to go:

1. Give creeps more inc damage
2. Freeps that don't have inc damage debuffs get angry
3. Freeps with inc damage debuffs remain OP
4. Who do you balance around?
5. Stacking inc damage buffs leads to Creeps being 1 shot in groups anyway, not addressing the issue

Reduce base incoming damage for Creeps across the board, buff morale and heals to match= Creeps significantly less vulnerable to inc damage debuffs and everyone is happy.

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General Monster Player Changes:

Depending on what you do with base stats/corruptions/mitigations, 25% health probably isn't enough.

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Most of these class change critiques are just going to be my initial impression with 0 testing- nothing said here is gospel.

Reaver

- I don't really like the Resilience chance- Freeps have spammable slows and having a tool that is up more consistently is preferred IMO over a longer, more powerful CD
- Please do not buff miss chance abilities- it is one of the worst mechanics in the game
- Sundering blow needs to be % mit debuff, somewhere in the ballpark of 5%
- Love the blade toss change- giving reavers a wee bit of CC should be cool
- I think the Upper Hand corruption change is cool, but may be tricky to balance things with this direction considering the disparity of corruption removals on Freepside
- No charge in combat- we do not need more in combat escape CDs
- Love the Time Out change- skill appropriate and useful
- The Double-edged blades corruption is EXACTLY why incoming damage SUCKS- it's a cool idea, but that 2% isn't going to be 2%, it could be 3-6% damage increase depending on if the reaver has a tome of defense, pop buff, incoming damage food, any incoming damage debuffs, or the artifact, and this significantly reduces the attractiveness of this trait. REMOVE INCOMING DAMAGE OR CAP IT AT LIKE 20% SO WE CAN HAVE NICE THINGS

Overall cool changes, I'm hoping the skill cd change increase reaver DPS- the bleeds are especially really weak, and honestly outside of the charge changes, doesn't really help Reaver much in group vs group or rvr- the class doesn't have enough relevant utility. Would love if this class had relevant AoE- buff the range and targets of all bleed skills and make impale AOE- seriously would be interested to test that.

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Defiler

- Don't like the gooey gourd change- Creeps problem is that the good debuffs we have get removed- leave gooey gourd as is.
- Morale cost of Fell Sacrifice increased to 2% of max morale-- Huh. Defilers really need a single target in combat rez on like a 2:30 CD or so
- Love the stances, this class has needed it for literally AGES- well played- the DPS skills and the invigoration idea seems cool
- Boon of toxic flesh is a great idea once we actually reduce the base incoming damage for Creeps

Overall really cool stuff for the most part. Will need to see how the complexity of the class as a heal role expands in the update- as it is now Defiler is too easy to play. Also need to make sure stanceswapping with Defiler is NOT abuseable, and lastly undying rage for Defilers may be a little OP, but hey, maybe Creeps need more defensive CDs.

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Warg

- Melee damage increase is probably fine- as long as Wargs maintain the strongest single target DPS, then I'll be happy
- Flayer: hey, more incoming damage. SURELY this won't be problematic with the 40% base Creep incoming damage, SURELY!
- Pack Hunters is a cool concept for dropping stance to apply a powerful debuff, but would need to be more like 10% incoming damage IMO
- Shadow Pack change I really don't like- it's a flat nerf to Warg in Group play and probably a nerf in solo play as well- Creeps need more reliable armor/mit debuffs, and puddle was THE debuff for Creeps for ages, and now it's gone for a horrible inc heal debuff that's made irrelevant with a single BA in your group. Make it 10-15% mits and 2-3% lingering
- Rallying howl damage buff will need to last longer than 25s (at least 30) and will need to be multiplicative not additive for it to not be worthless
- Any approximate % number for Bestial claws nerf? Good to see this change
- Damage on cripple and shadow fangs initial is awesome!
- Shadow fangs debuff seems harsh with inductions, but it's fine IF we fix the eye gouge interrupt spam- a 3s interrupt is just absurd. The 3s immediate is INTEGRAL to warg rotation but it needs an internal CD for its interrupts
- Snap change is sick! Any chance this can get a bit of damage like crippling bite too?
- Flea Bitten change is really not good- this class is absolutely swamped with interrupts and induction debuffs as it is- we don't need to exacerbate that. In group play it's gonna get removed most likely anyway and so is completely irrelevant, and in 1v1s/small group it's going to be ridiculously OP vs certain matchups- matchups Warg is ALREADY good at. This feels like gooey gourd again- making a debuff weak in raid setting but horrendously OP in any other situation
- Howl of Unnerving is hilariously broken, like the Fleas change on steroids- how long does this debuff last? 50% mits is absurd- will it last for the fear duration? If so then that means the debuff is going to last for around two seconds, and if not, wow you better pot that or you're just 1 shot. Again such an odd change where it makes the skill hilariously OP in certain circumstances but potentially not impactful at all in most others.
- Is the pounce change increase the damage of the initial fangs skill or the bleed it produces in combination with cripple debuff?
- Scratch and Snip changes are frankly strange- this skill needs some work, but in Shadow you don't need 75% increased crit chance on skills that crit at an 80% crit rate already, although it could be useful in Flayer to bump up your DPS a little. The Snip change is also odd, does that mean the crit % on the initial damage from Fangs? Does Snap have damage as well? If not then Snap! critting for a silence really isn't useful. I like the interactive use of corruptions here, just think they could be thought through a little more.
- Swipe change is cool!

Overall I'm concerned about:

1. Interrupt from eye gouge not being addressed
2. Shadow Pack nerf
3. Flea Bitten debuff and Howl of Unnerving debuffs being somewhat absurd
4. The strange buffs to pounce/SnS

I would LIKE to see:

1. Interrupt addressed
2. Damage redistribution by buffing some of the other DPS skills like Rend
3. Utility fixed: keep pack hunters as mits, make Rabid Bite a 60% inc heal debuff that tiers down to 30% after 5s, allow Rend to tier up incoming damage from 5% to 10% to 15% on each use, having some sort of self buff or defensive CD and moving away from Disappear/Sprint from being abused as escape CDs would be greate

I have a lot of ideas, but that's what I got for now

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Blackarrow:

Cool changes, this class could really use some help on its melee skills, screaming shafts, fire arrow, strong pull, etc.- way too many useless skills.

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Warleader:

Finding a skill or corruption strategically reduce inductions would be nice, finding a way to deal with fear resist would be nice (extra base finesse even as a band aid), giving WLs a defensive CD (maybe a weaker version of bubble when used on themselves) would be nice.

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Spider:

- Please do not buff miss chance
- ‘Poison Spray' can now be used against NPCs- unironically really nice. Creeps need more PvE AoE
- Cleansing shadows is a really cool idea but... man this class is gonna be absolute cancer to 1v1 now. More healing, more solo utility
- Toxic carapace change is... more incoming damage, and 25% of it, which means you can literally halve the damage you take because it's gonna stack with audacity and literally every other buff- it's gonna be more than halve if you use Tome of Defense

Not super pleased with the changes- could make spiders even more oppressive in 1v1s, but don't actually deal with spider's issues in group play- every effect gets cleanse and the one good aspect (CC) got nerfed last update.

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Overall cool stuff, mostly good, some really hard miss the mark- when doing these changes we really need to consider two things:

1. What is the class identity in group/raid play
2. What is preventing that class from performing in that setting?

Appreciate the work!

[Thorandril]

Overall orc reavers are lacking a serious focus or split focus on stances that are specializing almost every other creep class besides spider now. It would be helpful to separate AOE vs ST with the reaver between 2 stances to give them the option as required. As it stands the corruption mechanic is neat but does not really change the status quo for the class.

[Areyekuwe]

Artifact Changes:

When monster players control their artifact they receive +5% to all defences, +5% to all damage, +50% increase to Glory/Infamy and commendations earns, Increased Finesse by 180000, and a 2% reduction in power costs. When free players control their artifact they receive +2% to all their defences, +50% increase to Glory/Infamy and commendations earn, and a 2% reduction in power costs.

There is no confirmation on how this all works, CONSIDERING there is actually TWO artifacts currently in the game. For each side. Total number or artifacts creeps + freeps is 4 (four)